This invention relates to a time display apparatus for indicating the time of day in hours and minutes using liquid crystal display elements, electrochromic display elements, or the like.
Hitherto existing time display devices of this kind for displaying time in an analog manner have used a display device like that shown in FIG. 1. In this figure, sixty long, rectangular display elements A1-A60 are substantially equally spaced about a ring so as to form a first display group. About the outer circumference of this first display group A1-A60 are arranged sixty more display elements B1-B60 to form a second display group, each element of this second display element group aligned so as to point in the same radial direction as the corresponding element of the first display element group. With 60 elements in each group, display elements A1-A60 and B1-B60 of the first and second display element groups are provided on time display board 50 in locations corresponding to 1 to 60 minutes of the hour.
The display of time using this time display board 50 is carried out by the selective driving of the first and second display element groups, A1-A60 and B1-B60, with the first display element group producing a display equivalent to that produced by the hour hand of a conventional watch, and a combination of display elements of the first and second groups producing a display equivalent to that produced by the minute hand of a conventional watch.
Such a display is shown in FIG. 1, in which element A46 is driven together with the combination of elements A2 and B2 to represent, respectively, an hour hand and a minute hand and display the time 9:01.
However, in this time display board 50, a total of 120 display elements are necessary for the first and second display element groups, A1-A60 and B1-B60, and a correspondingly large number of driving circuits is necessary to drive the drive display board 50. Such a display board thus has the drawback that a small-sized, low-priced display cannot be produced.